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[Davio]

Dear Forum-visitors,

As the title says: Enlighten me about Gardens.

In a couple of months, I am going to play a big enough sized Dominion tournament (64 players). The first few rounds only deal with the Base games with Intrigue mixed in for later rounds.
The games are all 1 vs. 1 and have a time limit of 50 minutes, which in practice would only be achieved when both players play really slow, so it's not that big of a deal.

I have already read the article about the Base game on this blog: http://dominionstrategy.com/2011/06/20/guide-to-the-dominion-base-game/

This article covers many of the strategies found within the Base set and most are fairly obious to me after having played a lot of games and I feel I have them under control well enough.
There is one strategy however, whose appeal still eludes me and it is the Gardens strategy. Since we are only playing the Base game the first rounds, a setup with Gardens and Workshop isn't at all unlikely, so I would really like to grasp this "strategy".

I have read the Gardens article found here: http://dominionstrategy.com/2010/12/16/dominion-gardens/
This article in turn refers to a BGG thread found here: http://boardgamegeek.com/article/5417155#5417155

While playtesting this vs a standard computer player on kingdom.servegame.org and doing some solitaire analysis on Isotropic, it still seems way too slow for me.
So I was wondering what it is that I'm not getting about this strategy.

Basically, I try to get 4 Workshops, empty the Gardens pile with those Workshops and buy some other cheap cards with the money: Village, Cellar, Estates. "Rushing" for those piles still takes a long time and this basically isn't good for a Gardens player.

Is this strategy something to try with more opponents? Is it even viable in 2p games?

Please, enlighten me...

[Dave970]

As with most things, a Gardens strategy is contingent on what else is available on the board.  Since Gardens are worth more as your deck bloats, you have to consider things that can bloat your deck.  Lack of trashing, curse-givers, and extra buys are things that can accomplish this.  If you're going to get pounded with curses and have no way to trash them, Gardens will end up worth more to you, since your deck will be thick.  What's extra-difficult is if both players go for the same strategy, making a 4/4 split of the Gardens.  If you can find a way to get a 5/3 advantage, you should.  As with anything, study the board to determine if you think it's a viable way to win.

[guided]

• Woodcutter and Workshop are almost interchangeable in power for the Gardens rush. I'll use "Wo*" from here on out.
• Very few other base-set strategies can beat a properly executed Gardens rush. Like, I can't think of one off the top of my head. Maybe something with Militia, so be careful if Militia is out.
• I find the best early target is 3 Wo* cards, i.e. the best tempo for the mirror match, and the best tempo if a non-mirror opponent starts aggressively buying Gardens (which is usually the right move for them). Open Wo*/Wo*, and get 3 Wo* cards before taking Gardens.
• Aim to empty the Gardens, Wo*, and Estate piles ASAP. The only reason you would ever slow down even a fraction is to assure a 30-card deck in a non-mirror match.
• Once you reach 3 Wo* cards, get all the Gardens as fast as possible. With a spare $3 buy, take another Wo* card. With a spare $2 buy, take an Estate. With a spare buy less than $2, take a Copper.
• Use your best judgment as there are occasionally times when you'll want to violate the above rules (though not many), e.g. to get another Wo* card instead of a Gardens right before the shuffle if you feel your Wo* density is too low for the next turn through your deck.
• Another notable exception to the above rules: you should probably take a Gardens at turn 3 if you can and you know you'll be able to get a Wo* card at turn 4.
• Ironworks is even better for the Gardens rush! and will require slight modifications for the mirror match that hopefully you can figure out.
• Great Halls and Islands are potential 3rd-pile candidates, though beware if using a Wo* card since being more expensive than Estates they will be more difficult to empty with buys. With Ironworks, they are the preferred 3rd-pile candidates if available (rather than Estates).

[tko]

Workshops and rushing Gardens is viable in 2 player such as this game.

Bridge & Worker's Village are obvious +buy options that are alternatives to Workshop or Ironworks - see this game.

Not just +buy cards, but anything that adds cards to your deck like Bureaucrat, Thief, and Explorer, cards that normally aren't great, can enable Gardens.

Sometimes you need to win with Gardens by starting a normal economy, and using other enablers.

Hoard is one of my favorites - see this game.

Tournament prizes like Princess, Bag of Gold, and Followers are each good enablers, and my favorite is Trusty Steed's "gain 4 silvers" ability in this game.

Mint's trashing might seem counterproductive, but I've even used Mint to copy treasure like in this game.

[DG]

Basically, I try to get 4 Workshops, empty the Gardens pile with those Workshops and buy some other cheap cards with the money: Village, Cellar, Estates.

You could consider emptying gardens, workshops, and estates as the three piles. A hand with at least one workshop can at worst gain a useful card and buy a copper, so getting multiple clashing workshops may be better than having fewer workshops with some supporting cards.

[Epoch]

Mint's trashing might seem counterproductive, but I've even used Mint to copy treasure like in this game.

Note that that's a hybrid strategy -- you guys had bought out all the Duchies and three Provinces.  And it was a considerably longer game than you'd expect a pure Gardens strategy to go (it was 28 turns, while your pure-Gardens game took 20 turns).

It's hard to imagine Mint being worthwhile in a pure Gardens strategy.

(I realize that you note that those are games which start in a normal economy, but I thought that Mint in particular needed to be called out as "not a good buy in a pure Gardens strategy."  Like, Hoard would be awesome if you could ever afford it in pure Gardens, so if you somehow end up with $6 (Woodcutter + 4x Copper?), go for Hoard!  But Mint would actually be counterproductive in most Garden strategies.)

[WanderingWinder]

Epoch- that is, unless you can somehow quickly gain it without having to trash more than 1 card or so, which seems exceedingly unlikely.
I love the gardens, and go for them at basically every reasonable opportunity. On a strong Gardens board, you want to start getting gardens earlier than you otherwise would, say with 2 workshops on turn 3 (quite possibly the best play). On weaker boards it can often be helpful to have a flexible opening, as you need to guard against your opponents either trying to gardens OR go provinces. Games with Plat/colony make it SLIGHTLY harder to go gardens, but not much - you're usually too fast.
Watch out for really good acceleration by a player going for a different VP strategy, because if you're outpaced, you're lost.
Bureaucrat is one of the stronger enablers, but while you're going 'pure gardens', you aren't going 'classic gardens' and rushing three piles.
Ironworks is the number one enabler. If Ironworks is on the board, you MUST go some variation of Ironworks/Gardens.
Next is probably bridge, which helps run estates out quickly, closely followed by Horse traders, workshop, and woodcutter. Actually Horse traders might even be better than bridge. Hamlet and pawn are also really good. Worker's village less so. Talisman is middling.
Bishop is the Gardener's bane, and only the strongest gardens boards will work when bishop is out.

[AJD]

The board in <a href="http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110708-084815-49e01829.html">this game</a> didn't look like it'd be well-suited for a pure Gardens strategy, since the only +buy or free-gain cards cost $5 or more, but since I got a $6 hand on turn 3 I decided to get a Hoard and go for pure-Gardens anyway and indeed it worked like a charm. (The free Gold from the Hoard kept me liquid enough to buy a bunch of Festivals—i.e., non-terminal Woodcutters—and so forth. I did diverge from pure Gardens on my one $11 turn because hey, hard to turn down a Colony.) So now I'm wondering if Hoard with moderately expensive +buy might be a viable board for planning to pursue pure Gardens from the get-go, or if I just got lucky. Certainly the presence of a curse attack helped out a lot by emptying that third pile.

[painted_cow]

Imo Gardens where much stronger with Base+Intrigue Set. When I got to isotropic and tried gardens, I didnt get any good results at all. I am really curious how this plays out for other Players? I got only winrates 1.05 with and 1.63 without them. Most of the time garden games will be really tough in the ending with only +-5 points difference. This can of course go wrong easily.

I like Bureaucrat for going Gardens, it helps you to even sneak a Province sometimes, Duchies regurarely (even if it isnt your main target...). Most opponents wont recognise Bureaucrat as a Garden card and may wonder whether you are a noob and they get crushed by Gardens :-)

[Geronimoo]

If you download my Simulator (http://dominionsimulator.wordpress.com/download/) you can try the built-in Gardens strategy (COMBO - Workshop/Gardens) and see how it beats most other strategies easily (of course the other strategies aren't trying to counter the Gardens player, but you can modify them so they do)

[WanderingWinder]

Imo Gardens where much stronger with Base+Intrigue Set. When I got to isotropic and tried gardens, I didnt get any good results at all. I am really curious how this plays out for other Players? I got only winrates 1.05 with and 1.63 without them. Most of the time garden games will be really tough in the ending with only +-5 points difference. This can of course go wrong easily.

I like Bureaucrat for going Gardens, it helps you to even sneak a Province sometimes, Duchies regurarely (even if it isnt your main target...). Most opponents wont recognise Bureaucrat as a Garden card and may wonder whether you are a noob and they get crushed by Gardens :-)

Agreed on the Bureaucrat point. And IIRC from when I checked earlier today, I'm 1.21 with, 1.14 without, +% at like 82... Yeah, I go for them too often, but it's just so darn FUN.

[painted_cow]

I found one reason behind this bad win rate with is my idea to get Gardens when I am behind (like Duchies, cause Gardens will be 3 points often). When you do this many times its clear why the rate is that bad. So there is a difference between I-go-real-Gardens and I-ll-crap-them-as-Duchy.